The Walvis Bay Corridor Group (WBCG) has embarked on an aggressive marketing drive involving mainly Zambia – for now – and coinciding with a series of “ordinary meetings” that a company source confirmed were being held in Lusaka.
In what seems like intensified investor engagement, the news comes in the wake of a recent statement in which WBCG development manager, James Kaposa, said they were encouraging investors to utilise its facilities “as it offers a quicker and shorter transit which is less congested”.
It could not be confirmed whether Kaposa was referring to the north-south line between the copper belt area of Ndola and the Port of Durban as supposedly being “more congested” than the Walvis Bay corridor.
However, he reiterated that Namibia was ready to be used as a logistics hub for landlocked SADC members like Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“We would like to see a situation where there are no holdups in cargo movement.
“The Zambian market is emerging as a special market to the corridor as it is among economies that have sustained and progressive economic development in the SADC region with construction, agriculture, energy and mining sectors attracting a lot of imports and exports.”
Kaposa emphasised that the group had every intention of expanding tri-partite trade facilitation between Namibia, Zambia and DRC.
The Zambia visit comes as Namport is preparing to commission new facilities in Walvis Bay harbour, increased bulk capacity that could significantly boost the port’s throughput for leading raw mineral consumers like Brazil.
There was further confirmation that Namibia is primed to push the corridor and maximise the upgraded infrastructure earlier this year when WBCG acting CE, Clive Smith, visited South America’s biggest economy in a bid to leverage off Namibia’s strategic location in relation to Brazil.
